Quotes from Umberto Eco

A dream is a scripture, and many scriptures are nothing but dreams.

Entering a novel is like going on a climb in the mountains: You have to learn the rhythms of respiration - acquire the pace. Otherwise you stop right away.

My grandfather had a particularly important influence on my life, even though I didn't visit him often, since he lived about three miles out of town and he died when I was six. He was remarkably curious about the world, and he read lots of books.

Semiotics is a general theory of all existing languages... all forms of communication - visual, tactile, and so on... There is general semiotics, which is a philosophical approach to this field, and then there are many specific semiotics.

The comic is the perception of the opposite; humor is the feeling of it.

Every time that I write a novel I am convinced for at least two years that it is the last one, because a novel is like a child. It takes two years after its birth. You have to take care of it. It starts walking, and then speaking.

Better reality than a dream: if something is real, then it's real and you're not to blame.

Many people who no longer go to church end up falling prey to superstition.

Even today, I frequently meet scientists who, outside their own narrow discipline, are superstitious.

Man's principle trait is a readiness to believe anything. Otherwise, how could the Church have survived for almost two thousand years in the absense of universal gullibility?

The wise man does not discriminate; he gathers all the shreds of light, from wherever they may come.

I love the smell of book ink in the morning.

Someone said that patriotism is the last refuge of cowards; those without moral principles usually wrap a flag around themselves, and those bastards always talk about the purity of race.

We were clever enough to turn a laundry list into poetry.

All poets write bad poetry. Bad poets publish them, good poets burn them.

In the United States, politics is a profession, whereas in Europe it is a right and a duty .

Fools are in great demand, especially on social occasions. They embarrass everyone but provide material for conversation. In their positive form, they become diplomats.

The hand of God creates; it does not conceal.

Nothing can shake my belief that this world is the fruit of a dark god whose shadow I extend.

Libraries can take the place of God.

I always assume that a good book is more intelligent than its author. It can say things that the writer is not aware of.

We are always remaking history. Our memory is always an interpretive reconstruction of the past, so is perspective.

From lies to forgeries the step is not so long, and I have written technical essays on the logic of forgeries and on the influence of forgeries on history.

What we honor as prudence in our elders is simply panic in action.